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Early settlement
Of pre-Saxon sites in the Quarter nothing is known. The region may have been
less sparsely peopled, and more clearance may have occurred than used to be
thought. But if farms and hamlets existed they were lost before the advent
of maps, or they were taken over and re-named by later comers. That there
were folk in the district two thousand years ago is confirmed by a relic too
large for total obliteration by ploughing and infilling. This was the
ancient earthwork now called Berry Mound in Solihull Lodge, a half-mile
south of Yardley Wood. The name is Saxon and was originally 'buhr mont'
(fortress hill), but the work is of Iron Age date, made prior to the Roman
conquest. This eleven-acre site, an oval of 850 yards perimeter, was not the
home of a few savages, nor a hurriedly-made defensive position, but a
permanent camp which would have taken organised people some generations to
complete. In its heyday the fortress was defended by a high bank topped by a
palisade, with a deep ditch outside it. On three sides the slight hillock,
actually the end-knoll of a low ridge, was protected by valley marshes. A
track led along the ridge between the Cole, Shaw and Peter Brooks, to a
causewayed entrance on the south side, which was probably guarded by outer
banks. Was the hill-fort a solitary dwelling-site in an otherwise empty
area, perhaps erected by a tribe driven into Arden by pressure from others
more powerful? Or was it the capital of a settled district in which natural
clearings had been utilised for small family farms? In the absence of
archaeological finds, identifiable prehistoric fields, and authentic
pre-Saxon names, we cannot answer these questions. Excavation at Berry Mound
has revealed little, being confined to the ditches, since it is in the large
central enclosure that evidence would be found. Other earthworks like that
at Swanshurst (see below), of which even the date and purpose are uncertain,
may have a history of settlement much earlier than medieval or even Saxon;
but this can only be conjectural.
A
few finds of single coins around here are all that we have to remind us of
3.5 centuries of Roman rule. There are no known Roman roads, though the
ridgeways (see below) were probably in use before the legions came; and who
is to say that some other of the Quarter's lanes do not go back as far?
Whether or not the area was well-peopled in prehistoric times, it
undoubtedly had a large animal population of wolves, bears, wild cattle,
sheep, goats, and swine, deer, hares and rabbits. The air, the trees, and
the marshes were full of birds, and every rill teemed with fish.
Saxon beginnings
The first documentary reference to our area is in the famous Charter of 972.
In this King Edgar confirmed the Abbey of St. Mary of Pershore in its
possession of many estates including 'five households in Gyrdleahe'. The
name is pronounced 'Yerdley' and its given boundaries enable us to state
that this was our parent manor of Yardley. There is no reason to suppose
that the settlement was then very recent, that the thousand years of
recorded history which were celebrated in the Yardley Millenary Festival of
1972 were the total. After the West Saxons' victory over a British alliance
at Deorham (Dyrham) in 575, the way was open for their colonisation of
Severn and Avon. Though movement into Arden may have been slow, it is
probably that by the 7th century the Hwiccan kingdom centred on
Worcester had reached its northenmost extent. Anglian immigrants were moving
into the middle of the Birmingham Plateau by way of the Tame and Rea at the
same time as Hwiccan colonists were advancing north along Ryknild Street and
down the Coleside ridge. The two not dissimilar peoples, family groups
looking for new homes away from lands settled by their immigrant ancestors,
came into contact along the Cole and Spark. Anglian Mercia and Hwiccan
Wigornia established their common frontier thereon, as did the Sees of
Lichfield and Worcester a century or so later. The Hwiccan origin of the
first known folk of Yardley is apparently confirmed by the manor's inclusion
with its neighbour (Kings) Norton in the Diocese of Worcester, established
in AD 680. Wigornia later succumbed to Mercia, but that once-great kingdom
had declined to a mere earldom by King Alfred's time.
Danish raiders were abroad in our area, for both the Roman fort at Metchley
and Berry Mound were long known as 'Danes' Camp'. But the peace imposed by
Alfred's victory sent the invaders back beyond Watling Street, and there was
never a permanent settlement by Scandinavians around here, even after later
incursions. Alfred's daughter Aethelflaeda, widow of the Mercian earl,
continued to repel the Danes and to build strategic fortresses. King Edgar
established the Midland shires by allotting contiguous Hundreds to the
strongholds of Worcester, Warwick, and Stafford. As a property of Pershore
Abbey Yardley belonged to Pershore Hundred, though far removed from the rest
of it, and so went with it into Worcestershire like its neighbour Norton. It
was to remain an anomalous promontory into Warwickshire until 1912.
The first inhabitants of Yardley to be known by name are three who appear in
the boundaries recorded in the 972 Charter. Two of them (Mund and Leommann)
lived in our Quarter. The valley of the Spark was then called Mund's Dean,
and 'Leommanincgweg' (the way of Leammann's folk) is identifiable as the
Stratford Road across Hall Green. There is of course no certainty that these
men were still living in 972, or that theirs were two of the five
households, but we may guess where they or their descendants were living,
Mund's on Sparkhill and Leommann's either near the meeting of six tracks at
Robin Hood or at Four Ways where the ridgeways cross. It is not unreasonable
to suppose that all local boundaries had been settled by this time; we may
wonder how so few people (about fifty?) could have laid claim to the 11.5
sq. miles of Yardley. But numbers in this late-settled wooded region were
generally small and there was enough land for all who came.
Introduction
Geology, Natural vegetation, and relief and drainage
Early settlement, and Saxon beginnings
Boundaries, Domesday Yardley, and Moats and
earthworks
Medieval times, and Ancient roads
Perambulations
Old houses, Local government, and Tudor to Georgian
times
Families and houses
Georgian times
Bridges, Watermills, and the Stratford Canal
The Tithe Map
Churches, and Schools
Yardley Rural District, The City of Birmingham, and
Urbanisation
Industry, Between the Wars, and Public transport
Swanshurst Quarter in 1979, and Short bibliography
Maps |
